Editing The Pen Addict 724/transcript (section)

== Fashion-Forward Stationery ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' They're just creating a new brand where the products are more fashion-forward, it would appear to me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. So, that's where the stationary challenges come in, right? Yeah. So, what this is, we're finally getting there five minutes later. It's an attachable pen designed to be like a portable attached to like a bag, a backpack, a pocket, a lanyard type of thing. It's a pen with a sleeve. This is not a unique concept, right? It's a pen with a sleeve that has like an attachment point, either, you know, a carabiner, in this case, a little loop, um, loop with, um, like an attachment, uh, clicker on there. You can just, you know, bend it in and click, clip it to something. But what they've done is really- Uniball is definitely into the, the chunky, their chunky phase of pens where they're making like the Uniball 1P. Didn't you get that one from Tesla's shop? Did you get the 1P, the short one?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Little guy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Uh, yeah. So it's short and chunky, right? This is, this is that type of product in what's supposed to be like a backpacking or portable type of pen. And I have a lot of questions on like this, the design philosophy here. One, it's big, right? When I first saw this, I thought it was going to be smaller, like half the size, like just in depth and diameter and dimensions, right? Shrink this down by half. Because this is not a subtle product, right? So this is, when I think of this type of product, I want it to be a little bit more subtle because I'm attaching it to something. I'm, you know, packing it in something. I'm attaching it to my lanyard. This is going to be bigger than like your lanyard badge. It's like, so I have the orange one. Um, you know, and I, I apologize for the visual. It's like a hot dog on a ring, right? It's very large.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it stands out so much that it kind of gets in the way of what it's trying to accomplish, I think. And that's where I feel like it's right there that it could have been like 50% smaller and would have been an even better product. I'm saying all this in that I'm actually coming around to enjoying this product. It's hard to get over the size. The ring is super big.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Then this is all attached. The barrel is ultra light. So it's a weird feel. So like the ring is heavy and the barrel is light. So it's not like, uh, there's no density to the barrel, either the sleeve or the pin body itself. And then the pin body, the pin attaches, it's got a magnet on the tip. The magnet's really nice. I don't think it's the pin's going to fall out because this is designed to be carried externally. Generally speaking, like you can hook it to the internals of a bag and be fine. But this is generally designed to attach to something like this would be a great like retail worker pin, right? Or trade show pin.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. On the American website, they show it like attached to like a waiter's apron.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So like, I'm going to take this to stationary fest when we go in a couple of weeks because I want to continue to test it before like I review it more. But if they're going to make, they've tried to like stylize it so they could charge you $35 for it, right? When it's supposed to just be like this functional item. And I don't know. It's a, so I got mine from a friend that was traveling back from Japan. They picked it up in Narita airport and it still had the yen price sticker on it. When you look at the yen cost, I don't have it right in front of me. But when I did that conversion, it was more of a $22 pin. Like if you did it, if you bought it in Japan, that's like your, your yen to US dollar translation. 35 is a lot because if you go back to the apron picture, this is only a quick jotting pen barrel. When you pull it from its sheath, it's short, right? Even for my small, medium sized hands, you want the pen to be a quarter inch to a half inch longer to do any type of long-term writing other than just, hey, let me take your order. Or, hey, I'm at a trade show. Let me get your information type of pen. But I guess if you're just marketing as that, I think it works. I'm just very, very flummoxed on this whole design. Like I want to, I want to see the design conversation behind this pen. Like I want to see what the, I do too. And I was giving it a really hard time at first. The more I actually use it and play with it, the more I'm coming around to it. I do think it's a little expensive for what it is.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Sure. I think they've gone for a bold design because it's to be worn. Yes. So it's making a statement. Where if they made something super thin, like it just, it wouldn't be making the same statement. Where this is a big bold color and, you know, like I think it's making a, it's making itself known.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So Chris is bringing up in the chat a point I made when I was, I unboxed this yesterday on stream and was just having all these thoughts out loud. Why would I pay for the $35 for this as opposed to buying a 1P and clipping it to my shirt for $3.50?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because you can't hang it. Like that's the reason. I can't.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's just not about a carabiner. I'm literally hanging it to my shirt via the clip.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But it doesn't have a carabiner.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like I know that that's not the answer you're looking for, but that is the answer. Then I think they designed this improperly. Why? It's, it's way too large, right? This is like, if you're, if you're a retail worker, this is going to get in the way because of its size.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think this was more designed to be hung on bags.